2 minutes<\/span>\u00a0added on to Period 4 on Tuesdays to allow for school announcements. On Wednesday and Thursday announcements will continue to be at the end of Advisory after lunch. Please remember this new bell schedule will not start until a week from Monday on October 17, 2011.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn case you\u2019re wondering, \u201cAdvisory\u201d is the space for students to gain mentoring support from teachers, to share their learning experiences, gain study skills, and prepare for post-secondary plans. At least in theory. Our school has absolutely floundered with any kind of clear articulation of how to use the advisory time. And now, by cutting advisory to a two-times a week situation, is essentially killing advisory all together*.<\/p>\n
Finally, in regards to time: our school has a problem actually ringing bells at the right time. It shouldn\u2019t be difficult, right? I mean, you ring the bell when it\u2019s time for the class to end. End of story, right? Except that\u00ad\u2013since day one\u2013our bells are hugely erratic. They will ring anywhere from 1 to 7 minutes from their actual time.<\/p>\n
This may seem minor, but teachers plan for the consistency and depend on bells ringing correctly in order end class in an orderly fashion.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve got a few minutes to kill, I videotaped my watch this week while waiting for the bell to ring. The class is supposed<\/em> to end at 12:00. You can see my clock tick three additional minutes before it actually rings. You can hear the principal announce lunch changes, presumably because he thinks the bell is about to ring. In turn, you can hear Peter concluding his class because he thinks the bell is going to ring. And then: there\u2019s a whole lot of time for students to be restless. [That really is the extent of what happens in the video, but feel free to experience it if you really want.]<\/p>\n
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